Great British Railways - Competition for new location of GBR Headquarters

[GRALISTAIR]

New competition to find first HQ of Great British Railways - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

New competition to find first HQ of Great British Railways

Great British Railways national headquarters to be based outside of London to ensure that skilled jobs and economic benefits are focused beyond the capital.

www.gov.uk

My official gov.uk notification a few minutes ago

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

In the link above, and not mentioned so far, Grant Shapps has given Andrew Haines terms of reference for the GBR Transition Team (which he will lead as well as NR).

The Transition Team will now be responsible for driving forward reforms and creating the railway’s new guiding mind. They will initially focus on driving revenue recovery efforts post-pandemic, bringing a whole industry approach to tackling cost and promoting efficiency and establishing a strategic freight unit to boost the sector.
The Transport Secretary has also set out the core goals that will define GBR, including:

• changing the culture of the railways not simply creating a bigger version of Network Rail
• thinking like our customers, both passengers and freight, and putting them first
• growing the network and getting more people travelling
• making the railways easier to use
• simplifying the sector to do things quicker, driving down costs and being more accountable
• having a can-do, not a can’t do culture
• harnessing the best of the private sector
• playing a critical role in the national shift to net zero

 

[tonysk14]

I think classing Norwich as a remote destination like Penzance is a bit unfair (90 minutes from Liverpool St.)

On 1 train a day. Usually over 2 hours.

 

[Ianno87]

On 1 train a day. Usually over 2 hours.

Usually 1:45 or 1:51.

Still not going to be Norwich though.

 

[Sleepy]

On 1 train a day. Usually over 2 hours.

Compared to Penzance at around 5 hours journey time.

 

[thejuggler]

Where do most of the staff who work for the organisations that will form the core of the GBR staff live and work? How many will up sticks and move if the new HQ is beyond reasonable commuting distance?

If a significant number of experienced staff decide not to move then you immediately have an organisation struggling to manage its commitments (I'm sure that many of you will have examples of that happening in the past). That wouldn't be a good start for the bright new railway.

Having been involved in a small Civil Service move (about 30 staff) many decades ago this is important. It was a relocation from Westminster to one of three places. Gloucester, Ely and IIRC Wolverhampton.

Ely never stood a chance, Wolverhampton was OK by some, but Gloucester won through.

In the end the move happened, but about 5 years later the unit was shut down.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Where, interestingly, will be considered linked to rich railway history but perhaps only in such a way as to NOT then also be in the same place as a regional HQ?

One assumes regional ones will be Swindon, Ashford (?), Three Bridges (?), Southampton (?), Colchester or Cambridge (?), and so on.

So where would be left for a National HQ?

I still think Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds.

 

[Worldwide]

Quadrant MK is 100% owned by NR - I have double checked with Property.

I thought they sold it and rented it as it was cheaper

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I still think Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds.

DfT already moved some staff to Leeds (those linked to the TPE and Northern franchises), as part of the arrangement to set up Transport for the North.
I guess you'd call that Regional in the GBR context.

 

[ExRes]

Plymouth, it's about time the South West stopped being ignored

 

[mmh]

Staff retention, particularly of skilled specialists, will be key. Unless relocation packages are very good, and in the Civil Service they've been hacked to pieces, that just won't happen.

Who are these people, and where do they currently work?

 

[Wolfie]

Who are these people, and where do they currently work?

That is exactly what the team conducting this exercise should be ascertaining if they don't already know.

 

[mmh]

It rather depends on if the people choosing are the civil servants expected to move.

If yes, the shortlist probably won’t be some grimy ex Industrial town, but somewhere pretty with access to a City with big shops. More like Chester, The Gower, Devon coast etc

Can you give any examples which set this precedent to back up your assertion?

I'd suggest that recent civil service moves to places such as Newport, Norwich, Leeds and Newcastle contradict it somewhat.

 

[TravelDream]

It won't be Milton Keynes as I don't think it meets the core criteria.

It will definitely be somewhere 'up north' and definitely have direct trains to London.
It will likely be somewhere in the 'red wall', be fairly economically depressed and possibly have some historical link to the railway.
It's unlikely to be a really big city like Manchester.

For those saying about retention, I don't think the government cares too much. The Treasury is moving a load of staff to Darlington. Obviously not the most senior civil servants though. All of the most senior will stay in Westminster with the Chancellor.

 

[Gareth]

It'll be Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham.

These are the only places outside of London that actually exist. Everywhere else is a collective figment of the nation's imagination.

 

[RH Liner]

Mansfield, or even better, Shirebrook. Make them travel to work on the Robin Hood Line. Maybe the trains will run on time then.

Alternatively, Georgemas Junction, as a fair compromise between Wick and Thurso.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Should it even have a big centre? With modern remote working practices shouldn't its centre perhaps mostly be meeting rooms and similar collaboration spaces, with clerical work done at home or in local branch offices - a bit back to the future as BR had it with the various Rail Houses?

 

[AlterEgo]

MK is (strictly speaking contains) a historic railway town (Wolverton). Two if you include Bletchley.

I think the Quadrant is owned by NR. It was certainly NR who got the planning permission. I was involved in submitting comments on the planning application. The building is less than 10 years old and was built for that purpose. It would be madness to move the Network Control Centre elsewhere and that needs to be in the HQ.

Also Milton Keynes is double Tory with two Conservative MPs. Not unassailable seats either. Chances of that moving are slim to nothing.

 

[BrianW]

Should it even have a big centre? With modern remote working practices shouldn't its centre perhaps mostly be meeting rooms and similar collaboration spaces, with clerical work done at home or in local branch offices - a bit back to the future as BR had it with the various Rail Houses?

The current PM has indicated that people should 'go back to work', meaning a physical place for working together. (I'm picturing those car-workers, shop assistants returning from WFH). Fostering creativity, innovation, teamwork as per 'normal' rail business activity.

Who are these people, and where do they currently work?

Is it possible that HMG wants current staff (aka 'dinosaurs') to leave- like closing down the old boozer with cribbage in order to 'rebadge' to attract new folk of the right 'demographic'.

Somewhere 'central' might open up a 'market' of potential employees- having said which I dare say many will be self-employed/ consultants/ subbies/ Atkins/ Price Waterhouse ...

Somewhere that will maximise rail use? Cyffordd Dyfi?

HS2b to Perth (home of Lord Home ex Conservative PM) for onward connections for GBFish at regenerated Fraserbrough and Peterhead and garden bridges to Kirkwall and Lerwick?

 

[Western Sunset]

I'd like it to be Derby, as that was my old hometown. But I'll second the vote for Pilning.

 

[coppercapped]

Should it even have a big centre? With modern remote working practices shouldn't its centre perhaps mostly be meeting rooms and similar collaboration spaces, with clerical work done at home or in local branch offices - a bit back to the future as BR had it with the various Rail Houses?

Quite. In its later days the British Transport Commission, and later the British Railways Board, operated out of a hotel, 222, Marylebone Road.

Admittedly there were some outlying offices but the BTC/BRB not only ran the trains but also the infrastructure.

The whole thing is a smokescreen to get the Railway Division civil servants out of Great Minster House, where they have covered themselves in glory over the past couple of decades, and call them something different. Most of what they do is now superfluous so any new site really only needs to accommodate a very small number of employees.

 

[theageofthetra]

Whereever the qualified and most experienced staff are and where they will nearly all arrive by public transport?

So London then?

 

[High Dyke]

Judging by some of the comments from Network Rail staff I've read, some just want some stability in their roles - especially those that were displaced from regional offices to move to the DeathStar in Milton Keynes.

 

[GordonT]

Preston? Centralish, railwayish, reasonably connected to the big cities, leafy places to stay within striking distance.

 

[YorksLad12]

They could do a lot worse

However, the Dept of Health is already at Leeds, which rather rules out West Yorks generally I fear.

York would please Sir Humphrey, perhaps

Somewhere interesting to live please god

DfT already moved some staff to Leeds (those linked to the TPE and Northern franchises), as part of the arrangement to set up Transport for the North.
I guess you'd call that Regional in the GBR context.

Leeds has TfN's rail team, and the new Government Hub in Wellington Place which is the site of the former Leeds Central station, now home to DfT, NHS Digital, Justice, others (five minutes walk to work for me, if only I could persuade one of these departments to give me a job). It'll annoy the local politicians, who want the jobs and business rates but don't like the Government. And we're only 20 minutes away from the centre of Manchester and the rest of TfN once the new high-speed line is completed, plus a further 60 minutes to London. It's got a lot going for it.

[]

 

[Simon11]

I would assume that all the general back office staff would be based at this HQ (to benefit from lower salaries) with maybe a senior director.

However the majority of the key and strategic staff would still work at a location in London still, as that is where the majority of the expertise in the UK is based. There is no way of moving everyone from London for GBR.

Similar to Network Rail in Milton Keynes?

 

[Worldwide]

Where, interestingly, will be considered linked to rich railway history but perhaps only in such a way as to NOT then also be in the same place as a regional HQ?

One assumes regional ones will be Swindon, Ashford (?), Three Bridges (?), Southampton (?), Colchester or Cambridge (?), and so on.

So where would be left for a National HQ?

I still think Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds.

HS2 is going to plough through the Manchester office when it finally arrived.

 

[Purple Orange]

The Manchester NR office is moving to Victoria if I’m not mistaken.

 

[norbitonflyer]

If it's in the East Midlands or Yorkshire, that is probably a positive sign for the eastern leg of HS2.

Mansfield, or even better, Shirebrook. Make them travel to work on the Robin Hood Line. Maybe the trains will run on time then.

I made s similar suggestion when East Coast were consistently failing to honour connections to Lincoln - put the HQ there to buck their ideas up. When they countered that it should be somewhere on their network I pointed out that (at the time) East Coast did serve Lincoln, albeit only once a night*, although that was rather more frequent than the home of their customer services department, which had a postal address in Plymouth.

A service which arrived in the city just before the pubs shut and went back to London before breakfast time.

 

[Trackman]

Id put a fiver on Brum. First bit of HS2 allows them to escape back to London as quick as they can at the end of the day.

£5 here too.

Whereever the qualified and most experienced staff are and where they will nearly all arrive by public transport?

So London then?

They have specified it must be outside of London.

The Manchester NR office is moving to Victoria if I’m not mistaken.

Must be part of the 'New Victoria' plan, which will includes new office blocks too.